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Jungle_vip

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Finally decided to start my tank journal. Between work, Hurricane surf, and daughter starting hockey (which wasn’t suppose to be until later in the year at best) haven’t had the time to sit down and write this up. I know I will prob get negative feedback and personal opinions against a couple things I’ve done but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I battled with wanting to dump a bunch of money into this because my original plan was to do something on the low cost side that looks pleasing. So keep in mind that’s where some of the choices like salt, test kit, and lighting came into play. So here we go......

 

started tank on 08/29/2020

 

SYSTEM:

 

Tank: 10 gallon rimless aqueon 

Lighting: Hipargero A029

Live Sand: Bahama Oolite 16 lbs ish (1.5” sand bed)

Rock: 10 lbs live rock

Filter: Tunze Comline 3161 (also used as only    water circulation at 225 gph for the moment. Only use filter floss but have purchased carbon and mesh bags if need be used)

Heater: Cobalt Aquatics 50w

Water: RO buddie + DI

Salt: IO reef crystals (will prob switch to RS blue)

Temp gauge: digital

Refractometer: Amazon for $15

Test kit: API saltwater kit and calcium

PH: 8.0-8.2 depending on time of day

Ammonia: 0

Nititre: 0

Nitrate: 0

Calcium: 400-440 depending on day between water changes with the load so far

Salinity: 1.026

Temp: 77.5 consistently. Never seen it higher or lower. I check 3-4 times a day.

 

LIFE OF TANK 074F3FC7-0E90-4E0D-BEB1-BB577DE70011.thumb.jpeg.d53f16cbab778cc5d0530964c9c6ec43.jpegRUN DOWN:

-started tank on 08/29/2020

-every Sunday cleaning of filter, glass, sand, and 2.5 gallon water change. 

-tank finished cycled after 17 days

-Day 24 decided to add (2) Astrea snails and (2) blue leg hermits in addition to the red leg scarlet that snuck his way in along with a solid amount of sponges, brittle starfish, tube worms, etc. Even though we (my family and I) weren’t planning on it we ended up bringing (2) ocellaris home. I needed some more filter floss and decided to stop at the store on way home. The girls (who pretty much decide most things I do in my life lol) saw these two ORA clownfish getting absolutely destroyed by the other clowns. It was 15 mins before closing and I knew we couldn’t let them stay there. Plus, there was nothing I could say to them to convince the girls other wise lol. Yes they are from petco so I apologize to anyone who feels I should have let them die in there but they were definitely saved from a cruel death. Which I and two beautiful loving souls in my house have fallen in love with:) They instantly paired up and have not left each other’s side. Both of them eat ferociously and swim about the tank they know is now theirs. Can’t wait for their fins to grow back in. Here are some pics. Again I apologize to anyone who highly dislikes petco and hope some people

like the tank:)

 

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  • Like 5
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Christopher Marks

Beautiful nano reef setup @Jungle_v_i_p, you're off to a great start!

 

Your custom built stand turned out nice, that wood has great patina. Salvaged lumber?

 

Glad you were able to save those two clownfish too, a nice happy ending. What kinds of coral are you planning to keep in the future?

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Welcome back. My last clown was purchased at petco. Over the years I had had just as good luck with their fish as the top rated local fish store. You never know with livestock. Love your stand. I know you and the girls will enjoy that tank.

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29 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Beautiful nano reef setup @Jungle_v_i_p, you're off to a great start!

 

Your custom built stand turned out nice, that wood has great patina. Salvaged lumber?

 

Glad you were able to save those two clownfish too, a nice happy ending. What kinds of coral are you planning to keep in the future?

Yes it’s about 20 year old mahogany 3.5” wide by 3/4” thick i salvaged from a deck I rebuilt about 4 months back. I’m a finish carpenter by trade and have access to all kinds of lumber and materials from our job sites. It’s still not finished because I’ve been indecisive about how I want to finish off the gap between the right side plank and the door. When I rip it down it becomes a fresh raw edge and I want to keep it weathered. I only hand sanded it with 120 grit to knock the grime off. 
 

As for corals the girls are begging me for an anemone for the clowns but I’d like to stay away from them because I’d rather have a mixed reef of corals.  The top tier of like to have some easier to keep sps that branch, Zoas along the bottom, amd on the right side where it’s a bit more shaded and lower flow I’m hoping to keep some

mushrooms that the clowns will take to. The girls are slowly accepting the idea of that instead of the anemone as I’ve explained we don’t want it moving around and killing our corals lol. They like the green hairy mushrooms and the LFS I’ll be purchasing majority of my livestock from here in Mass (Love the Reef) sells them so I think we have a winner. Buuuut we all know how plans change and the tank can determine otherwise what she wants lol.

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21 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

Welcome back. My last clown was purchased at petco. Over the years I had had just as good luck with their fish as the top rated local fish store. You never know with livestock. Love your stand. I know you and the girls will enjoy that tank.

Thank you! I had  a bit of that lumber left over so we actually built a bed frame, a three tier floor shelf, and a school desk for our 12 year old with it since like everyone else needed a learning station not next to mom working from home lol. The girls really love that older look as do I being a carpenter. I love raw wood and the character it brings.

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Christopher Marks
2 hours ago, Jungle_v_i_p said:

Yes it’s about 20 year old mahogany 3.5” wide by 3/4” thick i salvaged from a deck I rebuilt about 4 months back. I’m a finish carpenter by trade and have access to all kinds of lumber and materials from our job sites. It’s still not finished because I’ve been indecisive about how I want to finish off the gap between the right side plank and the door. When I rip it down it becomes a fresh raw edge and I want to keep it weathered. I only hand sanded it with 120 grit to knock the grime off. 

That's super cool! How thick are the boards? Maybe you can rip the edge off one and use the natural finish on the remaining 3 sides to face outwards, with the fresh cut end facing the inside of the stand. Assuming the board thickness is sufficient to fill that gap anyways...

 

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11 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

That's super cool! How thick are the boards? Maybe you can rip the edge off one and use the natural finish on the remaining 3 sides to face outwards, with the fresh cut end facing the inside of the stand. Assuming the board thickness is sufficient to fill that gap anyways...

 

That’s what I was thinking too. I didn’t really want the raised trim piece to draw attention to it but I don’t see any other way to do it. I think you’re right if it’s thin enough it will be just fine. It will leave an 1/8” gap which is totally acceptable 

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14 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Welcome back. My last clown was purchased at petco. Over the years I had had just as good luck with their fish as the top rated local fish store. You never know with livestock. Love your stand. I know you and the girls will enjoy that tank.

Thank you that’s good to hear! I’ve never bought any livestock from a chain pet store before so it’s a first. At the same time they come from ORA so I figured they would be hardy and eat right away. Other than a couple bite marks on their sides and damaged tails they are swimming and eating great:)

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With the challenges stores are facing getting live stock especially fish if you can find what you are looking for you kinds have to grab it while you can. I know yours was more of a rescue purchase. The fish hopefully will recover but if any thing does go wrong I do not think it will have to do with where you got them. Good luck. Now that they not fighting for their lives I hope they do great. I got my little snow flake from Petco August 17 and he is doing great so far.

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  • 1 month later...

Tank update:

 

Just realized it’s been well over a month since an update. In that time I made some mistakes. I thought everything was going well after my last post. I had added two astrea snails, two blue legs to go with the red scarlet that hitchhiked from the start, and two ocellaris. Two weeks went by and I wanted more flow. So I added a hydor nano 240. My lfs was usually closed but they let come in because I was having build up on the surface from not enough agitation as well. On that trip to my LFS they had organized a rack of $15 frags or buy 2 for $25. I ended getting a couple plugs of zoas and two acan for $40.  One plug had three orange oxides I think along with 30 fruit loops. Not bad for $10 lol. A week went by and everything was looking great. The added power head was a great addition and couldnt be happier. I go back the next week and pick up some rastas, a scrambled egg polyp, some fire and ice zoas, and two others I’m unsure of off the $15 rack again. At this point I had no detectable spikes in parameters, no nuisance algae, and all additions had not shown any signs of stress. I noticed after running my ro/di for my weekly water needs that the di resin went from 10 percent color change to at least 75 percent change over the filtered 5 gallons. Im guessing approx 20-25 gallons of total water through the RO buddie unit. I’ll list my mistakes to make it easier.


1- did not purchase a TDS meter until after my troubles began.

2-did not flush my ro/di unit properly to start due to not have the pressure gauge installed yet. (huge and stupid mistake)

3-not flushing my ro membrane before each batch of water

4-probably did not do water change correction properly

5- light cycle too intense and too long

4-not being patient enough from the start

 

Since I didn’t have the TDS meter I was blindly adding contaminated water to the tank. Now I look at the inhabitants and feel like the worst owner for them to come home to. My TDS out of the ro/di was 52 one the first reading. Running 350 out of the tap, 7 ppm after ro, 0 ppm now that I’ve flushed and running properly.  So, not only was I mixing contaminated salt I was topping off with contaminated fresh. None of the ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate with my api test kit was detectable. As of now I still don’t have a phosphate or alk test kit but getting them today. I probably should have just done a 100 percent water change to start but I did three 3 gallon water changes over the course of a week. Then I did three 2.5 gallon changes the second week. Luckily nothing has died or shown any symptoms of stress. Clowns have fully recovered from the beatings at the fish store. Both have colored in with tons of black between their bars. The male is almost all black with his awesome orange face.  I’ll post pictures tonight. Scrambled egg zoa produced a new polyp. All zoas open and happy. Acans are full and juicy during the day. They turn themselves inside out at night with full extension on feeder tentacles (I guess that’s what you’d call them).

 

The ugly:

 

I have about 10 patches of hair algae about the size of finger nails that are about 1/4”-1/2” tall. I’ve found two colonies of bubble algae that I can see. After the cycle period and not having any diatoms the sand bed has been lightly covered for a month. Parameters are still undetectable with my test kit which I know doesn’t read at low enough levels. Phosphates unknown but I’m assuming they are there at some level and were at heightened levels for an extended period of time. As well as chlorine, metals, and other contaminants. When the time change hit I realized I had my lights on an 11 hour cycle and way too intense after a bit of research. I was accustomed to VHO and t5 lighting in my previous reef tank tenure lol. Since then I’ve cut my blues back to 80 from 100 percent and whites to 20 from 60 percent. Initially I had whites at 80 but wanted more blue. Little did I know. Have to say I enjoy the look much better. Corals have more pop due to the more blue spectrum and they seem more full and open bigger. Just my observation as of now. I also cut the light schedule back to 8 hours. Hopefully between the reduced lighting and properly filtered water I can get back on track sooner than later.

 

Thinking about a green emerald crab to combat the nuisance algae and removed later if need be. I’m hesitant because I don’t want being negative toward anything in the tank. I’ve had them in the past with no issues but I’ve read some horro stories researching. With my tank being only ten gallons I have some concern but not overly. What do you guys think? Any additional advice, suggestions, or information is greatly appreciated. Thank you as well if you took the time to read this lengthy confession of mistakes and stupidity:)

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  • 3 weeks later...

How much did that ATO cost and what is the model? Seems like it would be a nice budget option to a reservoir ATO. I get its not the prettiest but sometimes you just need something that works 😅

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15 hours ago, DGibster said:

How much did that ATO cost and what is the model? Seems like it would be a nice budget option to a reservoir ATO. I get its not the prettiest but sometimes you just need something that works 😅

I got it off Amazon. It works really well so far. Letting it run for a week to make sure. I’m going to run limewater through it starting next refill. Many companies sell it under different names for $9-$20. Got mine for $9. Search NEWCOMDIGI auto top off on Amazon. Should pull it right up. I purchased a smartwater 1 liter bottle. It will hold a 2 liter as well but I didn’t want that much weight or eye sore on my little 10 gallon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The pictures and corals look great. Better than the crap I post. How about a FTS of just the tank, no stand or light in the picture just all tank.

 I have that ATO and still haven't actually put it on the tank. I really should to keep the SG more stable. Maybe this weekend HaHa.

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